Matthew Kepnes, known to his thousands of daily blog readers and social media followers as “Nomadic Matt,” has spent nearly 10 years traveling the world on a budget and sharing his adventures along the way. An updated version of his 2013 book, “How to Travel the World on $50 a Day”, was released this past month, with new tips and tricks for saving on the road.
We recently sat down with Matt to discuss the book and talk about budget travel.
What advice do you have for people who say they can’t afford to travel to Europe?
There’s this false idea that Europe is expensive, but Europe is a big place with a lot of variation in prices. It’s not uniform. While Zurich, London, Oslo, or Paris might be expensive, there are always cheaper alternatives and countless other options.
Most people never see past Western Europe, but when you do, your options open up! And now, with the fall of the euro, it’s never been a cheaper time to visit the continent. Go. It’s not as expensive as you believe.
Okay, so which destinations in Eastern Europe do you find to be the best value?
I think Bulgaria, Romania, and countries in the Balkans are really good value countries. Hungary is another one. Your dollar goes very far there.
Outside of Eastern Europe, another great country that not a lot of people think about is Greece. It’s always been a very cheap country and the depressed economy has only made it cheaper. Now, with the fall of the euro, it’s become an even better bargain.
Despite a strong dollar, flights to Europe remain really expensive. How do you fly cheaply to Europe?
Airlines aren’t going to lower their fares because they are finally making money. However, the last few years has seen the rise of a lot of Transatlantic budget airlines so that is the best way to get across the pond on a budget. Fly Aer Lingus, Wow! Air, or Norwegian. Those are the best options as airlines aren’t going to really lower their high fuel surcharges.
Moreover, try to use a search engine like Google Flights to see which airports in Europe have the cheapest flights and fly into them. You can then hop a cheap flight to your final destination as Europe is filled with budget airlines.
In your book, you suggest that rail passes are a great option for Americans traveling abroad, but we usually feel otherwise. Do you actually find that they can save you money?
Rail passes aren’t as amazing of a deal as they were five or ten years ago. They have a lot of new rules with them and it requires you to really work out the math ahead of time. I think rail passes are really good if you are taking long, high speed trains and want to leave your schedule open (there is value in that). But if you are just going to one or just a couple of countries, I don’t think they are a good idea.
As a nomadic traveler, you probably spend a lot of time traveling on the road alone. Do you ever get lonely? How do you deal with that?
I don’t ever really get lonely. In fact, most of the time, I enjoy being by myself. You meet a lot of people on the road and make a lot of new friends, so you are always doing things and going out. I think the idea that solo travelers are lonely travelers is overblown. It’s a topic I’ve written about before.
You are hardly ever alone. There’s just too many other people out there.
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